"Democracy means that people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship God in any way they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well." -- screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo (12/9/1905 - 9/10/1976) from "The Remarkable Andrew" (1942). Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten who refused to testify before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee following World War II about his membership in the Communist Party and associates in the Hollywood film industry.
Trumbo was blacklisted for years, but managed to write the screenplays for such films as Roman Holiday (using a front), and The Brave One (using a pseudonym), and under his own name for Spartacus, Exodus, Lonely Are The Brave, and The Sandpiper. It's hard to know whether he'd be surprised at the Christofascist movement that has developed over the past few decades, and their attempts to ban books and to recast America as a Christian nation, intolerant of other faiths or no faith at all. He'd certainly be writing about it.
(photo: Trumbo in his office, 1961/ IMDb)
